


Been Losing You

by Ladybug_21



Category: Big Little Lies (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 21:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20032951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: A decade later, the Otter Bay moms watch their kids leave home.





	Been Losing You

**Author's Note:**

> I started doodling this story back in January, and recently decided to finish it while I was still inspired to do so. (Season 2 actually hasn't changed most of it at all, other than there being much more angst for Bonnie, and a distinct absence of Gordon for Renata.) I own no rights to _Big Little Lies_.

_Ziggy_

_How the hell did I end up this lucky?_ Jane asked herself for the umpteenth time.

She and Ziggy were sitting in some little restaurant on Telegraph Avenue, their stomachs grumbling as they inhaled the scents of turmeric and curry and saffron. All of Ziggy's things were safely stored in his new dorm room, and he had already met his new roommate, who seemed like a nice enough young man. Jane was still a touch in denial over the fact that she was leaving Ziggy here, but disbelief aside, she was already breathing a sigh of relief that it looked like he'd be just fine.

Her Ziggy. All grown up and only a day away from beginning college at one of the top universities in the state, if not the entire country.

"Samosas to start?" Ziggy asked Jane.

"Absolutely," Jane smiled.

Sometimes, she was still startled to catch sight of Ziggy and realize that this was her son—that the cherub-faced little boy with his _Star Wars_ toys, dancing along to YouTube videos, had transformed into the young man before her. Ziggy's hair still featured a cowlick that now came across as not adorable but dashing, and his dark lashes were accentuated by the thick black rims of his glasses. Jane had always known that Ziggy would grow up to be handsome, but it was still very strange to see the way that people on the street turned their heads to stare at her little boy as he walked by. Thank god he also was an exceptionally nice person, and not yet another attractive asshole.

"Know what you'll be doing for orientation yet?" she asked.

"Think there's some schedule online," Ziggy shrugged. "Want me to take a look?"

"As long as you know where you need to be, no stress. And you're _sure_ you don't mind if I head home tonight?"

"Of course not! Besides, not like you can't drive back here in a few hours, if need be."

"Yeah." Jane quirked a smile at Ziggy. "You're _so_ much nicer than some of your friends, that way."

"Don't tell me," Ziggy grinned, "Celeste is suffering in noble silence, and Renata spilled her guts to you over several glasses of Pinot Noir some evening not too long ago."

"You know my friends _way_ too well, kid."

"Inevitably." Ziggy raised his eyebrows impishly. "Well, it's not like I don't get the other side of things from Amabella and Josh, and Max, to some extent. At least Chloe's staying close, too."

"Yeah." Jane laughed. "I think that, if she had run off to literally another country like Abigail did, Madeline would have upped and moved with her."

"Sounds about right. By the way, you two should come visit sometime, once I've figured out freshman year a little bit."

_My sweet kid, asking his mom and her friends to come visit him at university_, Jane thought to herself. Ziggy adored all of her friends, like the surrogate aunts that they were, but Madeline had always secretly been his favorite.

"That would be great, and I'm sure that Madeline would love to," she said.

The waiter came by, and Jane ordered the samosas and a mango lassi for each of them.

"What're you thinking now?" Ziggy asked her.

"Hm?"

"You just had this very pensive, distant look on your face. Thought I'd ask a penny for your thoughts."

Jane leaned her elbows on the table.

"Okay, sorry to get mushy on you, but I was just thinking that you're honestly the best thing that ever happened to me, and I'm so, so lucky to be your mom, Ziggy."

"Mmm, yeah, that is _extremely_ mushy, but thank you."

"I'm serious," Jane repeated. "Just think, I wouldn't know about Celeste suffering in silence, or have Renata spilling her guts at me over a bottle of wine, if you hadn't introduced me to both of them through Otter Bay. I might never have known that Madeline Martha Mackenzie even _existed, _if you and Chloe hadn't been in the same class! So, see, the fact that my best friends are my best friends is _literally_ your fault."

"Rocky start notwithstanding," Ziggy winked, and Jane knew that he could joke about it because, by now, Max was his brother rather than his bully, and Renata was just another of the irrepressible women who had helped raise him.

"Hey," she added, laying a hand on his, "I know that you had to grow up faster than other kids, in some ways, and I'm sorry for that, Ziggy."

"Don't apologize, Mom, please," Ziggy said softly.

"My point being, I'm kind of stunned to have raised someone as awesome as you," Jane continued. "_Especially_ given the fact that you've had to deal with things that other people haven't, and have turned out so great. I'm just so excited to see you go out there and take the world by storm."

"Thanks," Ziggy mumbled, embarrassed.

"It's my prerogative to be ridiculously mushy today, sorry," Jane informed him. "I'll stop. But I just wanted to be _extra_ sure that you knew that I'm rooting for you every step of the way, and always have been. Got it?"

The mango lassis arrived, and Ziggy replied by clinking his glass against Jane's, then raising it to her in a slight toast before he took a sip.

* * *

_Amabella  
__& Josh_

"He said that? He honest-to-god _said that?!_" Renata fumed into the phone, her nostrils flared angrily. "Well, you can tell that motherfucker that if he wants to steal this deal out from under us, he's gonna have to pry it from my cold dead hands. What? No, Alfonso, I honestly couldn’t give less of a damn if I'm mixing metaphors—are you my vice-president, or my fucking speechwriter? Tell Tim I'll call him on Tuesday, as soon as I'm back in California, and that he has that much time to decide whether he wants his balls to remain attached to the rest of his lackluster physique. Jesus Christ."

Renata hung up angrily, still seething, then stared moodily out the window.

"Board meeting just get worse?" Amabella asked calmly.

"We'll see," sighed Renata, rubbing her forehead with one palm. "Sorry about that, you two."

Amabella caught Josh's eye and smiled slightly apologetically. He grinned back.

"_So_." Renata sat back in her seat, arms crossed, and surveyed the two teenagers in front of her. "How are you guys feeling? Nervous? Excited?"

Amabella responded with half of a shrug.

"Well, I never expected to be sent off to college on a private corporate jet?" Josh offered.

"It would have been foolish _not_ to bring both of you, when I was going to be using it to get to this meeting, anyway," Renata insisted, waving her hand. "Any fun adventures slated for tomorrow, before the show?"

"I dunno. The Met, maybe?"

"Sounds like a plan," Renata replied. "Well, I'll leave my phone on throughout the meeting, in case you need me. And stay safe, both of you. Your mom will have my head if anything happens to you two days before your college orientation, Josh."

It took two separate taxis to get Renata and Amabella and Josh, and all of their suitcases, from JFK to the Greenwich Village hotel that Renata had booked right across the street from the dorm that Josh would be moving into on Sunday. Following dinner at some fancy Italian place on Bleecker Street, Renata insisted on taking a few photos of the kids wandering through Washington Square Park in the early evening light ("You know how upset your mom is that she can't be in two places at once, Josh, the _least_ I can do is text her some photos of you here, okay?"). Afterwards, they all retreated back to the hotel, Josh to one room, Renata and Amabella to another.

The annual board meeting was as long and dull as it always was, but fortunately Tim's shitty maneuvering didn't faze Renata's board of directors at all, especially when she explained the whole situation to them as emphatically but _calmly_ as she could. During lunch, Renata called Alfonso to let him know that she just might find it in her heart not to castrate Tim upon their next encounter. A few minutes earlier, Amabella had texted a bunch of photos from the Temple of Dendur, she smiling demurely, Josh pulling exuberant faces as he clicked selfies of the two of them. Renata forwarded all of the photos to Celeste.

"Looks like you had a good time," Renata told Amabella that evening, as they got ready before dinner.

"We did. New York's great. I think I could spend every weekend at the Met and see something new there every time."

"Well, then, I'm glad you'll only be a train ride away for the next four years! Oh, _Jesus_, I didn't realize my roots were showing so much." Renata sighed, examining her hairline. "Hopefully no one at the meeting noticed."

"You _could_ always just let it go natural," Amabella reminded her. "That would save you some angst."

"Ha ha, _very_ funny, missy. I'll do it only if and when I can pull it off like, I don't know, Christine Lagarde, or Meryl freakin' Streep in _The Devil Wears Prada_..."

"Well, you'll never know unless you try." Amabella dropped down onto the edge of one of the beds in the room and sighed. "Hey, Mom?"

Renata pulled away from the mirror where she was reapplying her mascara.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Please don't do any of that 'look after my baby out here' stuff with Josh, okay?" Amabella said quietly. "I can just sense that you're constantly on the verge of giving him that spiel, and I really wish you wouldn't do it."

"Oh, honey." Renata sat down on the edge of the bed next to Amabella. "It's not that I don't think you're capable of handling everything on your own, okay? Even though I maintain that it's totally reasonable for a mom who's sending her daughter off tomorrow to go live in _New Haven_, of all places..."

"It's not that," Amabella cut in. "It's just... it's a lot of pressure, you know, telling someone to be responsible for someone else. Especially coming from someone like _you_. And you can't do that to Josh, not when he's going to be settling into college himself. I know he's like my brother, but that doesn't mean that he should be in charge of looking after me."

Renata put an arm around Amabella, who looked more and more like Renata with every passing year, but had inherited none of her mother's sense of melodrama. While Renata sported black boots, bright red lipstick, and a matching dress that draped over her shoulder at a flirty and slightly dangerous angle, her serious daughter wore a simple eggshell white sheath dress and only the slightest hints of makeup. (It was quite possible that the Gucci handbag Renata had brought with her on this trip cost more than Amabella's entire wardrobe and her suitcases put together, other than the designer pieces that Renata had thrust upon her daughter over the years. Renata had given up on trying to understand it all.)

"No, I get it," Renata said. "I just worry about you, you know? All the way across the country like this..."

"I know, Mom," said Amabella. "But you can't protect me forever."

"Yeah." Renata sighed. "Look, I know I spent half of your childhood yelling my head off about work or whatever else, and I know it can't have been easy for you, having a super high-strung mom like me. But I do hope you realize that I couldn't be more proud of you."

"I know," Amabella repeated simply, leaning her head against Renata's shoulder.

The two sat in silence for a comfortable moment, each lost in her own thoughts.

"By the way, what did you mean, 'especially coming from someone like _me_'?" Renata asked suspiciously.

"Oh, well." Amabella shrugged. "Don't think I don't remember how much you freaked out at Ziggy for allegedly bullying me when we were in, what, first grade? Not to mention _Jane_, poor thing."

"_Don't_ remind me," groaned Renata, covering her face with her hand. "I'll admit, I was a perpetually furious wreck that entire year. Well, and the year after. And probably the year after that, too..."

"Hmm, well, _quod erat demonstrandum_."

"Speaking of which," Renata added, "remind me to take a photo of the three of us when we get to the theater, by the marquee, to send to Celeste and Madeline."

"Sure." Amabella tilted her head quizzically. "Why Madeline, too?"

Renata threw back her head and laughed.

"Have I never told you about the whole _Avenue Q_ fracas? Seriously? Well, save that for the cab ride to dinner, in case Josh hasn't heard that story, either..."

* * *

_Max_

It really did kill Celeste to not be able to be in two places at once. She felt that regret intensify all the more sharply, the minute Renata's texts started arriving—photos of Josh and Amabella frolicking around NYU, hanging out at the Met, posing with Renata before the poster of a Broadway show. (_Oh, the irony_, Madeline texted their group, before Celeste could respond. Renata immediately replied, _In my defense, it was *exactly* as vulgar as I'd always expected, but whatever, I guess the First Amendment is still a thing._ 😉)

On balance, though, Celeste was glad to be here in California with Max for the weekend, helping him pack, and driving him and his things down to Pomona. If she had to miss one of her sons' conflicting college orientations, Josh was the one to take less offense. Josh was an eternal optimist, a goofball extrovert who had no qualms about engaging in ridiculous antics, like that short-lived garage rock band that he and Chloe started when they were fifteen, despite the fact that neither of them could _actually_ play the drums or bass guitar. Max, by contrast, had always been moodier, more secretive, prone to fits of melancholy. It was nice to spend a little time with him alone, given how seldom Celeste saw one of her boys without the other.

"Sounds like Josh is enjoying New York," Max said over dinner on Friday evening.

"He's been texting you?"

"Yeah. Says _Avenue Q_ was a blast. Think he's a tiny bit disappointed that Renata didn't want to go see _Hamilton_, yet again."

Celeste smiled. Renata had seen _Hamilton_ a truly excessive number of times. Before The Incident, Celeste had always just assumed that it was a matter of prestige, Renata's being able to say that she could snag tickets whenever she wanted to the most exclusive event on Broadway. Now, though, Celeste understood why it meant so much to Renata, to watch an award-winning musical about a poor nobody who, through sheer tenacity, became one of the most wealthy and powerful people in the entire country. Small wonder that, when faced with adversity, Renata's adopted battle cry had been a refrain from that particular show—_rise up, rise up_.

"I'm sorry that we're not doing anything nearly so interesting, your last weekend at home," Celeste told Max.

"It's okay," Max shrugged. Even if he didn't mean it, Celeste still appreciated the pretense.

Madeline and Renata were still amicably griping at each other via text when Celeste checked her phone after dinner.

_By the way, why didn't either of you warn me about some of those scenes?! I think that Amabella would have found the puppet sex hilarious, if she hadn't been mortified because I was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO HER._

_Oh my god, you *totally* knew that the puppets fuck. Remember how we had an entire meeting with the Mayor and the Monterey Planning Board once, about the puppets fucking?_

_Fine, but no one told me that it was so graphic, and lasted an entire song._

_It's *not* graphic, Renata. They're PUPPETS. Also, you could have looked this all up in advance._

_I don't like spoilers, OK?_

_There aren't any spoilers, the musical literally doesn't even have a plot._

_Well, there was no way for me to know that, without reading about the plot and risking spoiling things for myself, was there?_

Celeste collapsed onto her couch, smiling as she scrolled through her messages. She thought back to Madeline's production of _Avenue Q_, tried to remember whether she'd been offended or embarrassed by any particular bits... and then remembered why she hadn't seen the show at all.

It had been a long time since a shudder had made its way down Celeste's spine, the way that one did now. Her house suddenly seemed too large, too empty.

"Mom?"

"Hey," Celeste answered as Max appeared in the living room. "How's packing going?"

"Okay." Max threw himself into a chair across the room.

"Need any help?"

"I'm good." Max looked at Celeste. "You okay?"

_No_, Celeste thought, staring at Max, who had grown up with his father's movie star good looks and brooding nature. Sometimes, she couldn't help but feel that Josh had inherited the silly parts of Perry that read Edward Gorey books in funny voices and became "The Monster" for his boys. And that, by contrast, Max had inherited the darker parts of his father: the volatility, the anger, the man who became a monster for his wife. Celeste tried so hard not to view Max that way, knew that anything that he had done as a first-grader was not indicative of the sort of adult that he had become. She told herself over and over that she had raised him to be the good man that she had sworn she would.

But, of course, everyone aspired for their sons to be good. Surely every single parent who got the call from the university, was solemnly informed about the police report and the ongoing investigation, and lashed out against the accuser, did so because it was easier than to acknowledge that they had failed to raise a good son.

(Mary Louise had died two years earlier. Celeste, as the guardian of her next-of-kin, was left to organize the funeral. She was one of the few people who attended, along with the boys, and Jane and Ziggy. A solitary ending to a solitary life.)

_Have I done enough?_ Celeste wondered, and hated herself for even asking the question.

"Yeah," she replied. "Just worrying about you."

Max gave her a strange look.

"Mom, there's no need to cry. I'll be fine."

Celeste wiped the tear off of her cheek. Max got up and resettled next to her, then gave her as good a hug as a moody teenager could ever give his mom. Celeste hugged him back, urging herself to have more faith. Max was not his father. Maybe he still missed his father, every day. But Perry was gone. And Max Wright was his own person.

"I know you will," she whispered. "I know."

* * *

_Skye_

Abigail had grown up into quite the sophisticated young lady. Bonnie _knew_ this, of course, from the constant stream of texts and Instagram updates that Abigail sent from Thailand. But it was still something of a surprise for Abigail to materialize in Nathan's living room like this—a vibrant twenty-eight years old, bronzed from the sun, and brimming with a type of genial intensity that reminded Bonnie strikingly of Madeline.

"It's been _forever_," Abigail breathed, enveloping Bonnie in a prolonged hug. "How have you been?"

"Fine." Bonnie managed a genuine smile. "I've been fine."

Abigail didn't look entirely convinced, but before she could say anything, a figure bounded through the door.

"ABIGAIL!" Skye yelled, hurling herself at her older sister.

"Hey, you!" laughed Abigail. "Jesus, have you grown since I last saw you? Or is it just that, in my head, you're still about seven years old?"

Skye grinned. She was several inches taller than Abigail by now, a skinny beanpole of a teenager, all light and smiles.

A pang coursed through Bonnie. She didn't see what else she could have done, but it didn't make it any easier to remember what she had missed.

"You're all packed?" Abigail was confirming. "Awesome, we'll be able to get to the airport in scads of time. Don't forget your passport."

"First thing I packed," Skye reassured her. "Oh my god, I can't believe that this is _happening_."

"Yeah, neither can I," Nathan added, appearing in the doorway. His face was much more lined than it had been when he and Bonnie were married, the wrinkles now permanently set. "You know, one thing I never anticipated when I had kids was that not one, but _both_ of them would run off to Thailand, and leave me in the dust."

"It's only one year, Dad," Skye reminded him.

"Well, that's what _she_ said," Nathan grumbled, gesturing towards his elder daughter, "and how many years have you been there, now?"

"Long enough that you should have come to visit by now," Abigail answered smoothly. "And Skye's right, her gap year's gonna fly by. You should book your tickets ASAP, before you miss her completely. Both of you," she added to Bonnie.

"You don't think it's at all ironic, that Amnesty isn't going to be paying her anything for all of the work that she'll be doing on modern slavery?" Nathan quipped, clapping Skye on the shoulder.

"Dad." Abigail's face had gone deadly serious. "You can make all of the terrible jokes you want, but you do _not_ get to joke about some subjects, and human trafficking is one of them. Honestly, you should be _proud_ that both of your kids are leveraging their privilege to go advance the cause of human rights."

"Okay, okay, jeez, I'm sorry," Nathan said, holding his hands up defensively. "I am proud of both of you, you know that. Would I be letting you whisk Skye off to Southeast Asia, otherwise?"

Bonnie watched the banter from the sidelines, feeling as though she were witnessing a pantomime from the audience. Well, it wasn't too different from how she usually felt, this total detachment, this separation of spirit from body. Like running until her legs throbbed and her lungs burned and it seemed incredible that her physical self was able to hold together at all.

"Mama," Skye said gently, and Bonnie smiled at her incredible daughter. "Come visit us in Bangkok, okay?"

"Sure, baby." Bonnie wrapped Skye in a tight hug. She saw Abigail pointedly jerk her head towards the door, and then lead Nathan out of the living room. "Take care over there, you hear?"

"I will." Skye pulled back and looked carefully at Bonnie's face. "You take care, too, okay?"

Bonnie nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

"Skye, hon, I'm so sorry," she whispered. "For all of the times that I wasn't there for you."

And Bonnie didn't mean only her stint in state prison, for the involuntary manslaughter of Perry Wright. She also meant the years that followed, the constant evasion, going back home to take care of her dad, then staying long after he stopped needing her there to care for him.

Bonnie was a lifelong runner. When she felt overwhelmed, she ran. When her mother's abuse became too much, she ran. When the guilt of having killed a man welled up too suddenly and insurmountably, she ran.

When Bonnie reemerged from prison, she didn't have the slightest idea how to reconcile the person she was with the person she had been—and, most importantly, with the person she wanted to be for her daughter. So she did what she always did. She ran.

It had been the biggest mistake of her life.

Thank god Skye wasn't like her. Maybe Bonnie's daughter was a runner, too—but, if so, then Skye was the type who ran towards people who needed help, not away from those trying to offer it.

"Can you ever forgive me?" Bonnie asked.

Skye hugged her again.

"Come to Thailand, Mama," she said simply.

_I will_, thought Bonnie fiercely, watching Abigail's rental car drive away from the house, Skye waving out the window at her parents. _If it's the last thing I do, I'll go there for her._ Maybe she had missed her chance to be a good parent on whatever plane of existence contained Monterey, California. But maybe things would be different in Bangkok, an ocean away. There was only one way to find out. Bonnie had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by running towards something for once.

* * *

_Chloe_

"Oh, thank god, we've finally found it," grumbled Madeline, slamming the car door behind her. "If we'd had to go around one more traffic circle, I would have seriously screamed."

She propped her sunglasses on her forehead, a trickle of sweat creeping down from her temple. It was much hotter and drier here than along the coast. The air smelled faintly of dust, cut with the occasional sharp tang of eucalyptus.

Madeline glanced again at the map, scowling at the romanesque revival building looming before her.

"This is the right dorm, isn't it?"

"You're holding the map upside-down," Ed advised as he closed his own door.

Chloe rolled her eyes as she climbed out of the car, lugging her backpack behind her.

"I saw that, young lady," Madeline scolded.

"You're being super embarrassing, Mom," Chloe told her. "Dad, you brought that box that I left by the door, right?"

"Right here," grunted Ed as he opened the backseat car door on his side and attempted to drag out the massive box squeezed there under a bean bag.

Madeline crumpled the campus map in one hand and turned to her daughter. Her mouth quirked into a shaky smile.

"Oh my god," sighed Chloe, "before you go into a fit of hysterics like you did with Abigail..."

"Look, cut me a little slack, okay?" Madeline sniffed and expertly brushed an errant tear from one cheek without even smearing her eyeliner. "You know how much I'll miss you, and I'm gonna be an empty-nester this time."

"It's only, what, a two-hour drive?"

"I know, but it's not the same." Madeline wiped away another tear. "Besides, you're not going to want your boring old mom hanging around all the time while you're trying to meet new people and go to classes and..." Madeline exhaled. "And begin your own life."

Chloe watched her mom grapple with her emotions for a minute, then set her backpack down on the ground and wrapped her arms around Madeline.

"Pull it together, woman," she said gently. "Okay, maybe I wouldn't want you to move into my dorm with me, but I'll be super mad if you never come visit. So, don't be a stranger?"

Madeline planted an unnecessarily extravagant kiss on her daughter's cheek, which Chloe tolerated with reasonable grace before disengaging.

"Cool," Madeline sniffed, uncrumpling the map in her hand. "Right. Let's figure out how to get all of your crap from the car to your room, then."

Once all of Chloe's stuff was loaded into her dorm room, she was subjected to final hugs from her parents.

"We'll come visit soon, okay?" Madeline promised, holding Chloe tightly. "Let you show us around the campus, once you know your way around a bit. Or, Jane and I have plans to go visit Ziggy at some point, so maybe we can swing through Palo Alto and kidnap you on the way up to Berkeley some weekend?"

"Yeah, I'd love to go see Zigs in his new element! Although, still, maybe I'll come visit you sometime." Chloe shrugged. "This is going to sound so stupid, but I kinda miss the sound of the ocean already."

Ed heard Madeline sigh as they made their way back around all of the infuriating traffic circles, and he reached over and took her hand. His eyes were still on the road, but Ed suspected that Madeline was wiping away tears discreetly with her other palm. Murmuring from the car's stereo was a playlist that Chloe had put together specifically for her parents' drive home.

"Doing okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," Madeline choked back. "Just, you know, thinking about how we left our kid back there just now, on her own, living out her dream. Off to do amazing things."

Ed was used to reading between the lines by now, so he suppressed a loving eye roll of his own.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Well, college degree or no college degree, I'll be so damn proud of her if she grows up to be even half the woman you are."

Madeline smiled at Ed through her tears, then kissed his hand, and together they drove south out of the dry white-golden heat of a Silicon Valley summer, through the rolling hills and back towards Monterey.


End file.
